December 29, 2015

With millions of users worldwide, Facebook offers a direct route to a large community of potential customers and could be one of the best places to reach them.

According to Facebook,

“More than 1.3 billion people use Facebook to connect with what matters to them, and 64 percent of them visit Facebook every day. Relevant and engaging photos, videos and links make Facebook Adverts a powerful way to find new customers and build brand loyalty.”

Are you one of those who are looking to promote your brand on Facebook?

Link share is the combination of a status update, photo/video and story. As compared to sharing links embedded in status updates, these posts get more likes, comments, shares and clicks. They provide a more visual and compelling experience for users seeing them in their feeds. Larger clickable areas increase the chances of people landing on your site.

2. Catchy Photos and Videos

Needless to say, attractive and relevant photos and videos grab attention in less time than text and generate more curiosity and engagement among viewers. Post images and videos that highlight the best of your products and services.

3. Ask for Feedback, Ideas and Suggestions

You can target a group of undergraduates (or some other demographic) and share a real world challenge. Award innovative ideas with gift hampers. You can also ask for people’s feedback and show willingness to learn from other’s experience. Work on good suggestions and see how you can improve your product with it.

4. Include Call-To-Action (CTA)

A CTA has the power to incite action in your consumer. Include CTAs in product posts to get your fans interacting and, finally, making a purchase.

See the snapshot of Wal-Mart’s Facebook Page as an example.

5. Get Liked by Other Brands

Try to get liked by other brands — it increases your brand power as well as your target audience reach. It would be great if these brands belong to your niche or related businesses.

Another example of Wal-Mart in action:

6. Two-Way Communication

Use your Facebook page to listen to your customers and help them share their thoughts and feedback on your product and services. Listen to what they say and, most importantly, act. Make them feel that yours is a customer-friendly business with a belief in giving high-quality service to your consumers. This will increase their trust in you and reinforce the image of your business in their minds. It will prompt them to use your product or service in future too.

7. Contest and Prizes

Online contests are intended to bring involvement from people and, in turn, winners are rewarded with prizes. Start-ups often launch contests to get maximum number of followers or fans. For example, FM Radio channels in India often launch contests and give away freebies to gain huge participation of their listeners.

8. Reward Your Fans

Draw more interest, attention and loyalty to your page by rewarding the fans that engage in various activities on your page. Organize contests to reward your fan-base with free promotional gifts, discounts or offers on sharing and tagging their friends on your post. Increased visibility is an added advantage here.

9. Share New Projects

Let the world know that you have projects in the pipeline and there is no shortage of work for those who know how to do it. Make a headline if you are open to taking up or have already won projects in latest technologies. This highlights your skills and experience and adds credibility to your brand.

10. Share Your Progress

Sharing some of the exclusive information about events, new product launches and latest innovations or product news to keep fans updated. This will make people aware of your efforts, talent and success. When we achieve targeted milestones, people feel that work is in progress. Share total number of visitors, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, blog readers, e-mail subscribers etc. and make others part of your growth story.

11. Plan, Schedule and Target

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween and other events are a time during which special offers and discounts are prevalent in the market. Incorporating images of your product with a national or international celebration can generate lots of fan interaction. Make sure you don’t miss out on communicating any of them through Facebook tools to plan and schedule your posts. Activities can be broken down by week and respective topics by the content calendar.

12. Share Job Openings

Again, this projects a picture that your business is flourishing and you are getting new projects for which you have requirement of more manpower. It increases reliability because job openings are an indirect testimonial.

13. Share Testimonials

Work on what your clients have to say about you. You can make a polite request to them to share testimonials on your Facebook page or you could share by yourself and tag them. However, make sure you have permission to do so and that the client won’t mind being tagged for professional reasons.

14. Incite Curiosity

It might happen that you have a good fan base that is not very active on your page. In order to generate curiosity, frame your titles to make readers look for more and ultimately land on your website or blog.

KISSMetrics’ Facebook Page is a good example to follow:

15. Keep an Eye on Performance

Page Insights assist you in reviewing performances of your posts, what works and what doesn’t and what keeps the fans engaged so that you can make your strategic decisions accordingly. Here you can check out your page likes, post reach and page visits.

I hope the above tips will help you create a strong brand of your business. Comment below if you have some great ideas to share.

Adam Ostopowich is a small business consultant with more than a decade of experience in the Web Design Calgary and SEO industry. He has seen the industry grow from the initial years of Internet revolution. Currently, he spends more of his time providing consulting services to help Alberta businesses.